Ideas for writing a mystery Archives

Last week, I asked you to pick the victim for a cozy mystery, and each of the four photos got at least one vote. More readers were interested in picking the victim than the detective … does that mean anything? Anyway, we had a tie between photo #1 and photo #4. So I had to make an editorial decision and chose … photo #1. Below are all the elements of our cozy mystery.

Our Amateur Detective

Her job: radiologist
Her setting: a small town in Ohio
The victim: a crabby, elderly woman

Please leave in the comments how you think this cozy mystery would start. Does our amateur sleuth have her first meeting with the victim? Or has she known her her whole life? Are they friends, acquaintances, or enemies? Do the sleuth and victim interact in the first scene or does the sleuth notice something “off” about the victim? I’d love to read your inspiration! Here’s mine.

I hurried through the back door of the clinic and glanced at my phone. Three minutes to spare. I stashed my purse in the break room and walked quickly down the hall to the x-ray room. Didn’t want people waiting on me because everyone in town seemed to want to eat at Sarah’s Subs today.

I looked into the waiting room. Hannah, the receptionist, was in a deep conversation with Ms. Greer.

I stopped with my hand on the knob for the room to the x-ray.

Hannah wasn’t a friend of Ms. Greer’s. In fact, despite living her whole life in Draysville, Ms. Greer didn’t seem to have any friends. She was the most dreaded teacher in the high school. When she retired, any effort at volunteer work ended with either her taking over the work and running off the other volunteers or getting run off herself before she could take over.

Ms. Greer shuffled out the front door of the waiting room, and Hannah turned back to her desk, tears glistening in her dark eyes.

For more ideas for writing mysteries, click here.

Last week, I asked readers to pick a setting for a cozy mystery and the votes were for a small town in Ohio because that’s where I’m from. Thank you for voting! Now you need to choose a victim for a cozy mystery. Usually a victim is the most obnoxious or nasty character introduced in the first chapters, a character who irritates, hurts, and bullies so many of the other characters that there’s no shortage of suspects when the murder takes place. Of course, to put a spin on the stereotype, we could choose a very mild character, the last person anyone would think would be a target for murder.

So choose a victim from the photos below and tell me whether the character is mean or nice. That description will help form the plot.

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Everyone who voted wanted our sleuth to have a medical profession. I’m choosing the suggestion that she’s a lab technician working in radiology because that will give her regular time off to investigate. Now we have to choose a setting for this amateur detective. Select one of the following:

Rural community
Small town
Small city
Big city
Resort community
Island community

If you pick big city, you have to narrow it down to a smaller community. One of the requirements for a cozy mystery is that it takes place within a group of people with a restricted membership. In a city, that could be an apartment building, a club, or a small business. And please recommend a state. A small town in Maine is different from one in Indiana or one in Alaska. If you’re going outside the U.S., please recommend a region of a foreign country.

For more prompts for inspiring mysteries, click here.

After counting the votes, I found readers chose the photo above as our amateur sleuth for a cozy mystery. Now she needs a job. What an amateur detective does for a living has a huge impact on him or her. In order to qualify an amateur detective, she can’t have any official standing in law enforcement. No cops or lawyers. My sleuth Rae Riley works as a check-out clerk in a small town library. With the public coming in and out, she gets to learn what’s going on in the county. Since she’s twenty and living at home, she also has time to investigate mysteries. So choose a job for this amateur detective from the list below. I’m keeping the jobs broad so you can specify what kind of a job it is. Such as if you pick “teacher”, tell me what grade and subject.

Teacher
Small-business owner (Lots of these in cozy mysteries)
Medical job
Works with animals

For more prompts for inspiring mystery stories, click here.

In August, readers and I had a lot of fun creating the basic elements of a YA story. I posted photos and readers selected the main character, the antagonist, the setting, and the plot. So I want to do that again, but for a mystery. So choose an amateur detective for a cozy mystery from the photos below and put your selection in the comments. Who looks like they would be good at sniffing out suspicious circumstances, tracking down clues, and chatting up suspects?

In the coming weeks, I’ll have you choose a job for our amateur detective, a setting, and the victim of the crime. By the end of the month, we’ll have the main ingredients for a cozy mystery!

For more mystery writing prompts, click here.